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A Note of Sanity About Halloween

“See that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”(Colossians 2:8)

Recently a seminary student I know–a young man preparing for the ministry–wrote on a paper, “The only thing I really fear is zombies.”

I wrote back, “You fear zombies?Zombies??”

Hey friend, I have a message for you: Zombies. Do. Not. Exist.

Someone made them up. The nonsense about “the walking dead” might make for interesting story lines for books and movies–I said “might”–but they are the figment of someone’s imagination, and nothing else.

Neither do wooden puppets take on human personalities and kill the people around them. On full moons, certain men do not become werewolves. And old Plymouths do not suddenly come alive, leave the junkyard, and run over everyone in their path.

Stephen King and others like him are toying with their readers. They are doing one thing and it’s such a big thing, I’m surprised that all theists (God-believers) haven’t figured it out yet and been complimented: They are imagining how things would be in this world if God were not alive, on the throne, and in control, and evil was allowed to run amok.

Such story-lines are a back-handed compliment to God.

The Lord has made an orderly world. Evil, as bad as it is, does not run unbridled in this world.

No one goes to bed at night afraid that while he sleeps the dead from the local cemetery will leave their graves and invade the town to drink blood and eat brains. That is, no one but the immature and the unbalanced.

Some Christians have gone crazy–utterly losing their sanity–over Halloween. They are so fearful of evil and so impressed by the devil, so panicky at the thought of goblins and demons, witches and werewolves, that they attack any Christian who dresses their kid as Buzz Lightyear and lets him walk down the street collecting candy from the neighbors. To them, you are blindly poking your head in the sand while the devil is at work all over the world.

They are so much more spiritual than you.

Give me a break.

Over two decades ago, as I was interviewing with the congregation of my last church, someone rose to ask what I thought of Halloween. I had already been apprised of the stance of some of our most conservative members and recognized this as a loaded question. But I was not running for office and willing to say anything to “get elected.”

I told a story.

“One of the sweetest memories of my life was Halloween of 1974. Earlier that year, our family had adopted a 5-year-old daughter from Korea. By October, she was learning English fairly well. That Halloween night, my wife dressed Jinoke as a princess and I walked down the street with her. I would stand at the end of the sidewalk and she would walk up onto the porch, ring the doorbell, then turn back to me. ‘What is it, daddy?’ I would say, ‘Trick or treat.’ Then, she would turn back, ready with the magic words when the neighbor opened the door.”

She charmed a lot of people that night.

No child was hurt in those Halloweens.

As children, we played many games and loved dress-up occasions with masks and costumes.In my own childhood, Halloween was simply free candy. And candy on that poor West Virginia mountaintop was such a rare event, we looked forward to the evening all year.

Then, along came someone with a razor-sharp sense of what is right and wrong and attacked those little costumed children–and their seriously misguided parents!–as playing right into the hands of the devil. “We cannot cooperate with Satan’s agenda,” we were told. “The devil wants people to believe he’s make believe. But we take him seriously.”

Since no one wants to play into Satan’s hands, churches everywhere began to be afraid to do anything Halloweenish. We became halloweenies.

Now, everything is (ahem) “fall festivals.” My church too.

Let’s not overly fear Satan.

It’s possible to take him too seriously, if you ask me. It’s possible to give him too much credit, too much blame, too much attention.

The early church fathers spoke of an “unholy trinity” as the cause of our troubles: the world, the flesh, and the devil. It must irk Satan no end that he ranks no higher than number three in that trio.

The world is the fallen system around us which encourages us to dominate each other, manipulate others for our success, and to kill anyone who gets in our way. The flesh is the fallen spirit within us that wants its own way, puts pleasure and its own appetites above everything, and sees popularity and acclaim as the goal of life. And then there is the devil.

Satan is a murderer, a liar, and the father of lies (John 8:44). He is a fallen angel, the accuser of the brethren, and the deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12:9). He is the enemy of all that is good and holy. But he is a defeated being, one destined to confinement in the torture of hell forever and ever (Revelation 20:10).

No, we should not take him too lightly. But neither should we build our faith around him in the negative sense, talk about him all the time in our prayers, and live in fear of him. There is such a thing as taking him too seriously, too.

Halloween for Christians may actually celebrate his undoing.

One reason Christians can poke fun at the devil on this “holiday” or any other time is that he is a defeated being. In fact, every Lord’s Day we celebrate the victory over him.

“Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 15:57). “This is the victory that overcomes the world, even your faith” (I John 5:4).

Nothing lampoons a defeated foe like caricaturing him. And that’s what Halloween does.

I love the way God’s Word taunts death. “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (I Corinthians 15:55) You can hear the laughter in the voice of the Scripture writer. “Where is your power now?” he taunts, since Jesus is risen from the grave.

Please, no one write me with a history of Halloween and a compendium of evil. I need no evidence that Satan is alive and well and according to Revelation 12:9, on earth. (He is not in hell, stoking the fires, and in charge of that sad place. He is destined to be its chief tenant.)

For my money, you cannot explain Hitler or Stalin without seeing the hand of Satan at work. He is, as our Lord said, a thief who comes “to steal, to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10).

But let’s not honor him by giving him his own day. He is unworthy.

Let’s not center our faith around him and build our prayers with him in mind. He is the enemy.

Let us laugh at him. Let us scoff at his antics, and ridicule his doings.

And let us do all we can to rescue those held in bondage to him by showing them what is theirs in Jesus Christ: victory.

“We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world is cast out” (John 12:31).

It seems that Halloween and Zombies, ect would fall into the “unfruitful works of darkness.” Especially the new Zombie thing. The youth today are fascinated with Zombies, they dominate Facebook and the 6 oclock evening news show’s their parades. It’s all bloody and strange. When I was a kid it was a red cape and two red horns, clearly representing the devil, today it’s Zombies with bloody faces. Therefore, these seem to be “unfruitfull works of darkness. Your article was good, as always, with truths and correct ways of looking at some things, but overall Halloween has a dark side, and the Zombie thing is clearly darkness in my opinion.

I have always thought it was silly to not let your kids go trick or treating and wanting free candy on one night of the year but have never thought of it this way. It’s perfect! Don’t give Satan his own day! I especially liked the story about Jinoke, it brought a tear to my eye thinking about her when she and Brandi were that age. Thanks Bro Joe, for being so insightful and one of the best writers, EVER.

Thank you so much! I agree totally with you. This is what I think, just never could explain my point properly or enough. I also feel that by taking halloween away, or any holiday, that we are taking away a part of childhood which makes kids grown up & be serious before they need to be. My kids never dressed up as zombies or such, we have them choose something fun, good or even as someone else.
What do you respond to those who start to bring up the origin & reasons for the traditions of Halloween; or they quote scripture about not compromising & doing as the pagans?
Thank you again for this! God Bless You. Have a Wonderful Halloween!!

Lisa, when they bring up the pagan origins of Halloween, remind them of the pagan origins of Christmas, and then say, “But the Lord has redeemed the day, the same way He redeemed me! I’m His and so is this and every other day! This is the day the Lord hath made. No day on my calendar belongs to Satan.”

Brother, I hope to grow in wisdom, ability to communicate, and to be fully released of the fear to confront these things we seem to deem necessary to force upon others. Blessings to you, and all those who are out tonight!

Bro. Joe, while I was in my last church as pastor one of our Sunday School teachers put a poster on the wall that featured a jack o lantern. It had a scripture verse at the bottom of it, and she bought it at the Lifeway Book Store. Our youth director told her that she had to take it down because it was of the devil. I told him that he was being silly, and I told the teacher to leave the poster on the wall. I like your take on halloween.

This is so refreshing. I’ve seen many presentations on why celebrating Halloween and trick or treating is so wrong and unholy. I can’t even find other sources verifying some of the “historical” horrors described these presentations.
Anyway, thanks for the note of sanity.:)

Well said. I have often explained to people that many things in Christianity and throughout the Bible were taken from pagan sources and used by God for a pure and holy purpose including baptism. The church has to many real sins that we sweep under the carpet to worry about instead of fighting something as harmless as Halloween.